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New organisational frameworks: the importance of joint action
David Sogge
Transnational Institute, Amsterdam
Recent events in Tunisia and Egypt serve to remind us of the inspiring power of emancipatory
social movements. Less dramatic, but arguably even more effective in bringing on major
political transitions, are for example the results of people’s power in Brazil, Bolivia and
elsewhere in Latin America.
These advances are thanks to joint action. To what extent did private aid agencies and other
NGOs contribute to them? I think a lot of modesty is required. Relative to the role of
membership-based organisations and movements – of indigenous or minority peoples, of
organised labour – the contributions of NGOs hardly stands out. Indeed some have argued
that in many times and places they have served to reinforce the status quo by discouraging or
diverting energies away from movement-building and political action. Research about the
effects of foreign-backed NGOs in Egypt and other Arab lands up reached that conclusion,
captured in its title : “Too much civil society, not enough politics!” (Langohr 2004).
The roles of private aid agencies and other NGOs in these broad political advances may be
hard to detect, but some of their networks and coalitions have been relevant and effective on
more specific terrains of policy of global scope. Think of the NGOs providing crucial support to
the success of women’s movement for reproductive rights; to the campaigns to ban land
mines, to reduce toxic waste dumping or to restrict multinationals’ promotion of “baby-killer”
breastmilk substitutes; and to new US laws requiring extractive industry firms to account
clearly for their profits. These achievements matter, given the rapid and forceful pace at
which power is migrating into poorly-governed, often supra-national spaces, under conditions
of rising socio-economic and thus political inequality (see Dütting and Sogge 2010).
In those achievements, relational frameworks for joint action have clearly been important.
How NGOs organise themselves can make a difference. However NGOs are almost never able
to choose a model freely “off the rack” simply because they like it or because they want to
follow current fashions. Nevertheless, sometimes even intelligent people do just that. Think of
mess and stress created inside some big private aid agencies because their senior executives,
seeking to shake up their organisations, bought the “quasi market” organisational model
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promoted by high-priced management consultants. Recall also the substantial evidence of
disempowerment and other counter-productive outcomes of results-based management
practices (see for example Kilby 2006; Denhardt and others 2009). Successful models, on the
contrary, don’t follow fashions, especially those inspired by neoliberal, New Public
Management norms. Rather they show respect for emancipatory goals, for contexts in their
complexity and for participating members.
Much research has now accumulated about non-profit organisational models. For those
wanting to begin or improve upon an organisational approach, there is no shortage of advice,
advisors and lists of “best practice”. But like the holy grail of medieval legend, there is no
perfect model, no ironclad solution to problems.
In what follows, I present some cases illustrating models of collaboration for certain purposes
in certain circumstances. These may help call attention to challenges and dilemmas, and thus
to suggest some pathways worth debating and perhaps pursuing, and others to avoid.
Two broad categories of joint action organisational models may be distinguished for purposes
of this paper:
a) promotional networks and consortia among private aid agencies
b) activity alliances and coalitions, sometimes combining private aid agencies, NGOs
and membership-based organisations.
Organisational specialists (see Alter and Hage 1993) have identified four preconditions for
collaboration among organisations:
i)
ii)
iii)
iv)
a willingness to collaborate
a need for information or expertise
a need for financial resources
need for speed, flexibility and adaptive efficiencies
That fourth pre-condition is seldom a routine feature of category (a), promotional networks,
and thus for our purposes may be taken as an aspect largely related to category (b), the
activity alliance.
A) Promotional Networks and Consortia
Since the 1990s, a large number of northern-based private aid agencies have entered closer
relationships, particularly to advance their sectors and to manage competition. Private aid
agencies based on child sponsorship, humanitarian relief or general development have forged
large, rich international consortia. The Save the Children Alliance, Oxfam International and
World Vision International are well known examples. As way of achieving corporate purposes
through marketing a “brand”, or of competing for charitable donations and official contracts,
there is little doubt about this model’s success – though management consultants continue to
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suggest ways to make these transnational consortia even more successful (see Huggett and
others 2009). Some of these promotional networks, such as the MSF affiliates, sometimes
including joint operations, thus meeting needs for rapid action and adaptation. Regarding
these networks’ added value in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and empancipatory impact,
however, research has exposed weaknesses, such as of opportunism and dysfunctionality (see
for example Cooley and Ron 2002).
Two cases suggest the kinds of drives at work, and persistent problems and dilemmas,
especially where financial pressures and interests get an upper hand.
Case One: ICVA
The International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) is a sectoral association of mainly
humanitarian private agencies. Founded in 1962 through the fusion of three private aid agency
networks, it was once a leading umbrella body of what some call the “Humanitarian
International”. In 1997-98, after a period of growth and diversification, it experienced a severe
crisis, a “near-death experience” (for details see Sogge 1999). Among the lessons from that
painful episode are that promotional associations like ICVA can overload themselves with
objectives; they can bring on board new members with a wide divergence of interests – in this
case rich and powerful northern agencies and financially insecure southern NGOs -- and then
paper over those divergent interests, effectively neglecting those of less powerful members;
and they can be driven off course by siren songs about commercial gain, a “humanitarian
marketplace” and a neoliberal vision of aid agencies and for-profit firms as competitors in it.
Case Two: ‘Forced Consortia’ in Dutch aid system
The term “forced consortia” can be used about another model of NGO collaboration, in this
case in The Netherlands, a country noted for its generous charity market and for its public
subsidies to private aid agencies and other NGOs. Over the past decade the Dutch Foreign
Ministry has repeatedly revised its subsidy system. These changes have had important
consequences for the internal systems and behaviour of private aid agencies and other NGOs,
including collaboration/competition among them. The first revision was to create a ‘quasi
market’ among private aid agencies. The government did so by ending exclusive access to
subsidies of four old, established grant-making agencies, virtually a cartel, and by inviting
additional organizations to apply competitively for subsidies. A second government revision
was to merge its two main subsidy schemes, supporting at least 90 organisations in 2009, into
one scheme, the Co-Financing System II. Organisations were allowed to apply for funds from
that scheme only on condition that they formed consortia with other subsidy-seeking NGOs.
Today, 20 of those ‘forced consortia’ (involving all together 70 organizations) have signed fiveyear subsidy contracts with the Dutch Foreign Ministry. As intended, the Ministry has thus
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greatly eased its administrative burden: it now has to manage only 20 subsidy portfolios
instead of 90.
But in so doing it added yet one more link in the aid chain. Agencies and other NGOs seeking
subsidies -- both winners and losers in the competition for government subsidies -- have been
obliged to enter costly, top-heavy arrangements in which the servicing of bureaucracies takes
precedence over genuinely professional programming. ‘Delivery’ of quantifiable goods and
services, according to pre-set formats and targets in low-risk settings, can easily take
precedence over process-intensive, difficult-to-steer, often innovative work. As in other
Western European aid systems, new rules have intensified competition in charity markets; as
a result, efforts to develop NGDO image, ‘brand’ and marketing today take larger shares of
agency revenues. The scramble for suitable for ‘partner’ organizations has also intensified,
since southern NGOs capable of absorbing money are also courted by the Dutch government
itself, which funds them directly from its embassies. Many observers (for example, Nijs &
Renard 2009) question whether the benefits of these competitive, target- and managementintensive systems are worth the cost, both in resources and opportunities lost, such as for
innovation.
B) Activity Alliances and Coalitions
Collaborative relationships can and do grow along other, more promising lines. Some follow
North-South and South-South lines, often with creative mixes of professional NGOs and
membership- or community-based organisations. I have selected cases I have evaluated or
otherwise come to know at first hand.
Organised Labour: West-East Solidarity Networks
With the collapse of state socialist systems in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union,
organised labour had to “re-invent” itself fundamentally, under very unfavourable
circumstances. This is by no means easy or simple. The pre-conditions for collaboration –
willingness, funding needs, and especially needs for expertise/knowledge – were clear. In the
Netherlands and elsewhere in Western Europe, national trade union federations and
international umbrella agencies called Global Union Federations (GUFs) rapidly began
responding to Eastern workers’ organisations, most of them unfamiliar with capitalist rules of
the game. The process was largely demand-driven. Easterners wanted new knowledge, and
they got a lot of it in thousands of training workshops, exchange visits and background studies.
They also received some (modest) funding from Western trade unions, subsidized by
government in cases such as the Netherlands and the ILO. Interaction has been horizontal,
based as much as possible on norms of solidarity. The GUFs have managed much of the
sector-specific support -- chemical industry GUFs assisting chemical industry federations or
public sector GUF helping health care unions, for example. GUFs have contributed to activist
networks whereby, for example, Western trade unionists’ knowledge of multinational
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corporations has helped strengthen the negotiating positions of East European unions facing
those same corporations. Such networks have also helped to influence national law-making
about labour rights (see Croucher and Cotton 2009).
To move forward, West-East collaboration has had to overcome many obstacles, including
deep-rooted union/enterprise hierarchies carried over from the state socialist epoch, and the
unfavourable of neoliberal economic change. But union collaboration does demonstrate at
least two kinds of advantages of international networking among organisations of the same
sector or socio-political “family” One advantage is to make possible the transmission of ideas
and practical know-how based on experience; this makes such networking more effective
because it is relevant. A second advantage of the union-to-union approach is that they make
use of mutual confidence – some unionists address one another as ‘ brother’ and ‘sister’ -thus enhancing the networks’ legitimacy.
In Africa, the greater diversity of social and political settings for organised labour, activists
have had to develop models of interaction designed country-by-country and even sector-bysector. Thus for example in contrast to former East Bloc countries, African collaboration
models often include significant roles for ‘trade union support’ actors – training and research
NGOs, services by freelance consultants and media specialists and so forth.
Drugs Policy Activism
Before the ‘war on terror’ was the ‘war on drugs’. Its negative impacts on the political and
economic well-being of entire societies in many countries has long posed needs for better
knowledge and alternative proposals. Today officials of affected countries, health specialists
and even conservative editorialists acknowledge the failure of the conventional eradicationrepression approach, and some of its terrible consequences; indeed those established figures
are now seeking ways out.
In the mid-1990s, after years of research in support of Central American peasant organisations
(many on the frontline of the ‘war on drugs’), an Amsterdam-based think-tank, the
Transnational Institute (TNI), launched a research project to cast new light on the issues and
to propose alternative policies that would reverse the destabilizing spiral of criminalization,
violence, and corrupted political life. An account of this programme’s content and
achievements can be found on the TNI website
(www.tni.org/drugs). As a model of
international collaboration the programme illustrates some important features:
o
o
o
respect for and routine contact with persons ‘close to the ground’, including
membership-based organisations, such as of peasant farmers;
continual ‘north-south’ interaction with national and regional of researchers,
journalists, human rights activists and other forming informal networks (often
relying on academic centres or NGOs for formal relations);
‘south-south’ connectivity, including inter-visitation, seminars among researchers,
human rights activists and members of social movements, thus building a socially
anchored ‘community of practice’ respected by mainstream bodies;
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o
increasing connection with sympathetic officials and specialists in ‘established’
research and policy centres at national levels in affected countries, as well as with
international policy-makers in high-level meetings (notably the United Nations’
main body for drugs policy, but also EU and other platforms), but without
compromising the programme’s integrity.
Some financial resources are channelled through TNI to participants in focus countries;
therefore some formal relations (contracts, financial reporting etc) have developed. But the
general character of the network is informal. The emphasis is on research rigor, respect for
confidentiality and intellectual autonomy. The model permits a flexible and nuanced approach
to highly charged issues. It allows participants to get beyond framing the policy choice as one
of either prohibiting/repressing narcotics or legalizing them. That highly simplified
‘prohibition’ versus ‘legalisation’ logic leaves little room to think about concrete and urgent
reform options. It can therefore be an obstacle to realizing viable harm reduction strategies
and an end to a massively corrupting system. Guided by such thinking, the networked
organisational model has allowed the programme to build and sustain trustful relationships at
local and activist levels while at the same time to gain standing and influence within ‘insider’
policy networks at global levels. This open, independent yet socially-anchored stance has
allowed the programme to introduce new knowledge, to offer alternative interpretations of
existing knowledge, to foster discussion and to contribute to policy shifts, now increasingly
detectable in Europe and in the United Nations.
Shackdwellers
The rapid spontaneous growth of urban settlements in Africa, Asia and Latin America has
overwhelmed most political and technical means of steering development in decent and
equitable directions. In their usual responses, officials, donors and most NGOs have either
ignored or tried merely to use low-income residents and their organisations as instruments in
big schemes developed on desktops. Given these ineffective and often counter-productive
approaches, alternatives were needed. Beginning in Mumbai in the 1980s and now present in
at least 33 countries and close to 100 cities, a movement of shack- or slum-dweller
organisations has emerged to strengthen poor residents voice and leverage over their living
conditions.
Neighbourhood residents, both owners and renters, form groups in which women constitute
big majorities. These groups coalesce in city-wide federations. To pursue their various
organisation-building methods (savings, social surveys, etc.) and sweat-equity construction
projects, groups get technical expertise and ‘brokerage’ services from made-for-purpose
professional NGOs able to provide technical and other services.
From these city-based arrangements, national confederations of shackdwellers have emerged.
Through these, linkages have developed within regions, such as East and Southern Africa,
permitting ‘horizontal learning’ through exchange visits and other ways of transmitting knowhow and building solidarity. Specialist advice, such as from local technical agencies or
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universities, is routinely mobilized. Municipal and national officials are included in activities,
but on terms set mainly by the federations.
This movement took on formal dimensions in 1996 with the founding of Shack/Slumdwellers
International (SDI) (www.sdinet.org). Built largely from the ground up, it is an active alliance
composed entirely of ‘Southern’ organisations, chiefly membership-based federations but
including associated professional NGOs. Its founding responded to needs to reinforce and
replicate local and national organisations, to spread knowledge of emerging issues, to promote
the creation of spaces for federations to dialogue with different levels of public authority, and
to promote financial vehicles for improving housing and public infrastructure on terms set by
poor residents. SDI relies on a small secretariat in Cape Town and an international Board. It
operates as a coordinating platform for South-South interchange and an amplifier of
shackdweller voices at international levels, such as in meetings convened by UN Habitat and
the World Bank, but is by no means within the policy or intellectual orbit of those bodies; on
the contrary, it contests many of their approaches. It maintains maximum feasible autonomy
also when negotiating its funding, which comes from a variety of private foundations, official
donors and private aid agencies, which can sometimes also serve to spread its ideas and
arguments.
Landless and Poor Farmers
In contrast to most urban struggles, rural struggles over access to land and to decent work
have been present for generations, and subject to contestation and manipulation, such as in
the Cold War era in Latin America and the Philippines. Since the Cold War, a new movement
made up chiefly of landless labourers and poor smallholders has emerged to claim land rights
as citizenship rights and to press for a better deal for rural labourers. Since 1993, various
associations, NGOs and networks, particularly from Latin America and Asia, have formed a
transnational alliance, Via Campesina (www.viacampesina.org). It comprises today nearly 150
national and sub-national organisations, both NGOs and membership-based associations. It
collaborates closely with professional NGOs and networks, such as the Foodfirst Information
and Action Network. Via Campesina’s structure has become more formal, but remains highly
decentralised and operates chiefly via member organisations rather than central orchestration
through its (extremely modest) global secretariat, currently based in Indonesia. Funding
comes from member organisations, foundations and a few private aid agencies. Via
Campesina’s representatives regularly take part in global consultative processes, including
those set up by the FAO, World Bank and other major development agencies. Thus, it anchors
itself in member-based bodies, serving as a new ‘civil space’ where they can learn, debate and
formulate responses, and from which they can mount pressure for change at various levels
including global levels.
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Conclusion
This brief review has sketched a few features of relational frameworks, based on cases of
North-South cooperation in the emancipatory camp of civil society. It notes two trends. First,
among private aid agencies of ‘global North’, largely in response to drives in markets for
donations and official contracts, sophisticated yet regimented models of collaboration have
emerged; these show both the sunny and shadow sides of ‘success’. Second, promising forms
of collaboration are emerging close to the kinds of people in the global ‘South’ whose poverty
and powerless have served to justify aid interventions. While by no means new (recall that a
formally-constituted transnational labour movement emerged in the 1860s) these alliances’
present the aid-and-development community with an important, positive challenge. In a
nutshell they are saying to aid interveners that development, like all other politics, is
something done “‘not about us without us”.
What makes these emerging models of cooperation different from the conventional one of
‘helpers’ and ‘the helped’ in the aid chain ? Among major differences are:
o
o
o
o
o
o
Social anchoring among people whose fundamental interests and rights are at stake;
Ideas and know-how – not delivery of money and goods – inform and drive the interaction;
Inter-organisational development – institution-building – is seen as valuable in itself, not
merely a management or fundraising gimmick or instrument;
Networks are developed more and more as vehicles for action, not merely for interchange;
Joint action is framed within political paradigms of building power, and of contestation and
negotiation with powerful actors, not technical problem-solving, ‘participation’ and
conflict avoidance;
These alliances work deliberately to create their own political spaces for debate and
development of alternatives. They prefer not merely to accept invitations to enter political
spaces controlled by others (donors, governments, World Bank, etc) but rather to deal
with those powerful outsiders on their own terms, and where possible to invite those
outsiders to meet in political spaces they as social movements have created (for examples,
see Citizenship DRC 2011).
These emerging models can often manifest what are claimed (Weyrauch 2007) as networks’
strengths: knowledge sharing, inclusion of diverse actors, making use of members’ strengths to
compensate for weaknesses of others, solidarity and mutual aid, multiplier effects and political
weight, laboratories for citizenship. To the extent that they are socially anchored, and
downwardly responsive, they can also minimize international networks’ most common
weaknesses: low legitimacy, non-transparency, poor accountability, vulnerability to co-option
and elitism, non-involvement with local and national public sectors, weak political impact.
Looking ahead, and to conclude, these models face at least six challenges:
i)
ii)
iii)
Securing financial and material resources to sustain themselves
providing tangible incentives, visions and social connections that motivate
members and ‘glue’ them together, often by combining the following :
focusing on common targets in the context of real “structures of opportunity”
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iv)
v)
vi)
keeping up forward motion in the political arena – even where ‘big victories’ are
uncertain and achievable only in the long term (see Fox 2000)
developing responsive, accountable and transparent internal governance
developing capacities to track progress and learn from it.
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